Students Who Got a Sidewalk Built in 14 Days

About this episode

Evan Clark and Natalie Eger discuss their grassroots efforts to improve local infrastructure and engage the community in Lexington, Virginia.

Evan Clark and Natalie Eger are college students studying sociology in Lexington, Virginia, and they came back from the 2025 National Gathering in Providence, RI fired up to do something. In the past year they've built a thriving local conversation group, turned a city council member into a regular at their monthly meetings, and had a broken sidewalk fixed fourteen days after they flagged it. They walk through how they started from scratch, made real change at the local level, and kept people showing up month after month. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Lexington Introduces Community Planning Initiative to City Council (Article) Strong Towns Lexington (Site, Instagram) Evan Clark (LinkedIn) Natalie Eger (LinkedIn) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here. This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

People in this episode

Guests: Evan Clark, Natalie Eger

Topics covered

• community engagement
• local government
• sociology
• activism
• urban planning

Keywords

• sidewalk
• community planning
• local change
• student activism
• city council

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Strong Towns

Places: Lexington, Virginia, Providence, RI

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